Mobile communication systems continue to grow in popularity and have become an integral part of both personal and business communications. Various mobile devices now incorporate Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) features such as calendars, address books, task lists, calculators, memo and writing programs, media players, games, etc. These multi-function devices also allow users to send and receive electronic mail (email) messages wirelessly and access the Internet via a cellular network and/or a wireless local area network (WLAN), for example. In addition, these devices may allow users to send Short Messaging Service (SMS) messages, Personal Identification Number (PIN) messages, and instant messages.
Some mobile devices may be able to access remote file servers and to download files from those remote file servers. Given the amount of information now stored on a mobile device itself, and the amount of data remotely accessible by a mobile device, a user may wish to search for a specific e-mail, data file media file, or contact, for example. This search may be performed locally on the mobile device, or may be performed remotely on a file server.
Given the relatively slow nature of the wireless communications of some mobile devices, there may be a significant communications lag when performing a remote search. The mobile device sends search terms to the file server, and the file server then performs the search, and subsequently sends the search results back to the mobile device. Since some search results may be relatively large, the time from the initiation of the search on the mobile device to the receipt of the search results by the mobile device may be greater than desired.
As such, enhanced methods of searching remote servers are needed.